This might seem small but.....
Windows 7 is opening each folder in its own window, even after following the above steps and rebooting. Any suggestions?

thank you in advance.

All i did to correct this was unpin the Windows Explorer icon from the task bar and start menu, do a properties on the icon located in accessories and pasted "C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe " over the top of the existing target (Essentially restoring it to default) and it worked perfectly without having to do a repair install.